A New Way to Die
by Sly M. Cogan
Summary: A James Bond novelette. After botching a mission in Austria that leads to a fellow agent's murder and a scientist's abduction, 007 races from Austria to Australia to stop mad scientists from developing a formula that can turn men into monsters. Complete.
1. A New Shade of White

_Disclaimer - I don't own the rights to any trademarks within._

_**A/N – The following is based on the James Bond fan movie "A New Way to Die" that I made with some friends at school. The "prose" version is based on my script without the accommodations I had to make for my actors or for the sake of what we could realistically do. So this is the version with the better "special effects" added back in. Also, I've attempted to be just a little bit more in step with the style of the literary Bond, with largely the feel of the cinematic Bonds.**_

**Ian Fleming's James Bond 007**

**in**

"**A New Way to Die"**

At the Castle Bloodhaven, located in the Austrian Alps, Double Oh Four of MI6 stood on the balcony, watching the gala below, and contemplated her code number. Double Oh Four was the handle she preferred to go by when dealing with her colleagues. Her given name seemed too much like an immature knock knock joke, and the men who found out about it always had a field day.

"Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Iva." "Iva who?" "Iva Hotbod."

In a few minutes, Professor Wolfgang Koehler would assume the podium, and he would begin his lecture on his recent discoveries in the fields of genetics and pharmaceuticals. But in reality, the lecture was just a ruse. The idea was to get Koehler in the proximity of the nearby MI6 safe house, which he would be escorted to as soon as he finished his speech. Double Oh Four was one of the agents assigned to make sure the relocation went smoothly. One of the agents.

She knew whose show this was really. She was merely back-up. The famous Double Oh Seven was on the case. Double Oh Four considered this with more than a small amount of resentment. Even as an agent in the exclusive Double Oh section, one of the few women on the Service who had been granted a license to kill, she was a woman in a man's world. She was only there to see that things ran smoothly, along with Remington, a standard intelligence op. This was Double Oh Seven's operation.

She saw him now. He was wearing that ridiculous white dinner suit that had gone out of style in the 60's. Yet, though she was loathe to admit it, he managed to look good in it. As she squirmed uncomfortably in her navy blue evening gown, being more accustomed to working plain clothes jobs, Double Oh Seven moved about in his formal wear as if he had born in it. He moseyed over to her as comfortably as if he had been attending the gala as a mere social event.

"The snow is a new shade of white."

"It will never melt," Double Oh Four responded, completing the recognition code. "It's about time you showed up, Double Oh Seven."

"I was just freshening up a bit," Double Oh Seven replied. "Is he here, Double Oh Four?"

She pointed and he trained a pair of tiny binoculars, similar to those used by opera attendees, on the elderly scientist.

"He'll be stepping up to the podium soon," Double Oh Four said. "We're to escort him out immediately following the speech. The formula he's carrying must not fall into the wrong hands."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

James Bond brought his head back from the pair of binoculars he was wearing and looked at the beautiful young woman beside him. The drab navy blue dress she was wearing looked less expensive than the other guests' extravagant outfits, but it was tight in all the right places and showed off a great deal of the woman's long, shapely legs. Bond looked into her blue eyes and saw a great deal of resentment there. This didn't seem to be the type of operation she was used to participating in. He guessed she had just recently received her Double Oh designation.

Bond looked through his binoculars again and scanned the crowd. His vision came to rest on a peculiar man who seemed to be in a foul mood. He was a tiny man, not much taller than five feet, with thinning black hair and coke bottle glasses. The man was arguing with a more physically fit man with medium-length blonde hair.

Bond adjusted the focus on his binoculars and could see the tell-tale bulge of a weapon beneath the blonde's dinner jacket.

"He's armed."

"You'd better go investigate."

Bond slipped the binoculars into the coat pocket of his white dinner jacket.

"Who's the other operative?"

"Remington," Double Oh Four said.

"I've met Remington. Dandy chap. Be sure and say hello for me. By the way, rather garish earrings you're wearing."

Double Oh Four sighed.

"The radio receiver's inside."

Bond removed a pair of sunglasses from another of his coat pockets and slipped them on.

"Mine's in the left earpiece. The transmitter?"

"Bracelet," Double Oh Four said, lifting a delicate hand so Bond could see the pearls around her wrist.

"Cufflink," Bond responded. "Good old Q, eh?"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Double Oh Four slowly approached Professor Wolfgang Koehler. The elderly scientist looked nervous, and understandably so.

"Professor Koehler," Double Oh Four said gently, trying to be disarming, "I'm Agent Iva Hotbod. I'm with MI6. Come on."

She took him by the arm and gently began leading him towards the exit.

"The formula," Koehler stammered. "I'd only intended it for good. I never thought of it's other applications! It must be kept from…"

"Not here, professor," she said sternly. "We need to get you some place safe."

A man in an expensive evening suit, with a silk cravat and a van dyke beard, was smoking a tiny cigarette by the exit.

"The snow is a new shade of white," he said.

"It will never melt," Double Oh Four said. And she breathed a sigh of relief. "You must be Remington."

"Good evening, Agent Hotbod."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The cellar of the castle was like a maze, and Bond cursed himself for giving the blonde man too much of a head start. Bond's target and simply vanished.

Bond raised his cufflink to his mouth to say something to Double Oh Four, but then he dropped it. He'd noticed something on the floor. Something red.

Bond didn't need to study it hard. It was a streak of blood, leading to a closed door around the corner. Bond held his breath, removing his standard sidearm, the Walther PPK, from his shoulder holster and quickly screwing a silencer on. He then leaned around the corner and pushed the door in. There was a loud groan.

The room was empty, except for one man Bond recognized in an expensive suit with a van dyke beard. He was covered in burns and deep lacerations and struggling against the cords that bound him to an uncomfortable wooden chair. Bond kneeled down in front of him and removed the gag from his mouth.

"Remington?"

"James," the other man said weakly. "I'm sorry. He tortured me."

James quickly brought the cufflink to his mouth.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Double Oh Four, I've found Remington! He's been tortured!"

Panic filled Double Oh Four's heart. She'd been close enough to the imposter Remington that he could hear Double Oh Seven's voice emitting from her earring.

"Tough break, my pretty," the fake Remington said.

Two large men grabbed her from behind, as the fake Remington smirked and two others grabbed a panicked Wolfgang Koehler. They dragged the scientist towards a truck as she was dragged the other way.

Just then, Double Oh Seven burst from the castle, firing his pistol and catching one of the thugs holding Double Oh Four in the heart. The two holding Koehler released him, leaving the imposter Remington to deal with strapping Koehler into the passenger seat of the truck. The thugs tackled Double Oh Seven as the remaining goon dragged Double Oh Four back into the castle.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Bond hit one of the thugs over the head with his gun. The other tried to wrench it out of Bond's hands. As they struggled, both lost grip of the Walther, and the gun flew through the air and landed in a tool box that had been left open by a shoddy truck.

Bond grabbed one of the men by the neck and forced their head into a stone fence. He turned around and delivered a karate chop to the other man's neck, stunning him. He then grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off his feet, throwing him over the wall. Bond heard a scream as the man tumbled down the mountain.

The man whose head had collided with the wall was now recovering. Bond backed up as the man reached for a gun. Turning, Bond dove for the toolbox that his gun had landed on. Before he could reach the gun, his hand came to rest on a screwdriver. Bond grabbed it and hurtled it into his attacker's body. The man stood with a blank expression on his face, stunned that the tip had penetrated his chest. Bond stood up and drove the screwdriver deeper in.

"I'll bet that screwed you up," he quipped as the man collapsed and died.

Bond looked to and from the castle. The fake Remington and Koehler had gone in one direction. The goon and Double Oh Four had gone in the other. Bond ran towards the castle.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Double Oh Four struggled to break free of the thug's grip as he dragged her to the edge of the balcony she had met Double Oh Seven on, but he was stronger than her. He pushed her over the ledge and then ran.

Double Oh Four felt herself hurtling towards the ground. Then, suddenly, it stopped. She opened her eyes, ready to face whatever judgment existed in the world after. Instead, she saw Double Oh Seven grinning at her.

His knees were buckling, yet somehow he had managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

"Glad you could drop in, Double Oh Four," he said.

"Please, Double Oh Seven" she said. "My name is Hotbod. Iva Hotbod."

"Well, my name is Bond. James Bond."

_**A/N - This is set in modern day. The reason Bond is using a PPK rather than a P99 is because it's more old school like that, and that's how I prefer it.**_


	2. A Hot Debriefing

_Disclaimer - I don't own the legal rights to James Bond, any related characters, or any other trademarked characters, brands, or items within the story._

_**A/N - Just a really short chapter for now. More coming soon.**_

**DragonTyc_ - Thanks for your review. I hope you continue to read and enjoy the story._**

James Bond tried not to think of the physical lashing he had taken at the gala, or the verbal lashing he would take in a few short moments. Instead, he concentrated on remembering exactly how it had felt when he had made love to Iva Hotbod a couple of hours earlier.

She hadn't been sure at first if it would be appropriate, but then they had come to an agreement that they both needed to take their minds off of their recent failure, and the ensuing mess it was to cause.

Iva had grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes with wanting. His hands went to her back and slowly caressed it, feeling the curves of the shoulder blades and spine beneath the drab gray dress and then, with great pleasure, unzipped it. With the dress falling away, James had continued feeling her body.

Then she pulled him onto the bed. They looked at each other as two people condemned to death, and they made love to each other with all of the fire and passion that had aroused.

"I hear the gala didn't go so well last night, James."

The small, girlish voice awoke Bond from his reverie and snapped him back to his painful reality. Miss Moneypenny, M's personal assistant and Bond's long-time admirer, looked at Bond with the utmost sympathy. Bond leaned forward on her desk and offered a friendly smile.

"It wasn't exactly my idea of a party."

They were at the Austrian safe house Bond and Iva were meant to have escorted Koehler to. The fact that Bond was here without Koehler meant M would be here longer, rather than her own office back in London.

"Austria hasn't been to kind to me either," Moneypenny said, holding up a scarred fingertip. "Just this morning, I got a paper cut."

Bond chuckled.

"That's my Penny," he said. "The unsung martyr for Queen and Country. England will never know the sacrifices you've made."

"Would you like to buy me a drink later?"

Bond sighed.

"God knows that after M's through with me I'll need one," he said.

"You'd better go in there now," Moneypenny said. "She's pretty hot."

"That's news," Bond said, and he pushed through the door into the next room.

Barbara Mawdsley, known better by the code designation "M", was Bond's superior. She had inherited the designation and the position from Admiral Miles Messervy. The new M's approach to the job was much different than that of Messervy's, who had become a close friend to Bond. While James Bond and Barbara Mawdsley had clashed at first, they had come to develop a mutual respect for each other.

As M, Mawdsley ran a tight ship. It was a very serious job, and Bond wouldn't have had it any other way. But the new M's strict approach left very little room for Bond's sometimes unorthodox methods, and he knew it would be especially difficult to make M see his point of view concerning the fiasco that was the gala earlier.

M said nothing at first, simply staring coldly at him. He took Moneypenny's warning to heart. M certainly was not to be trifled with tonight.

Finally, she spoke.

"I would never expect this level of incompetence from you," M said. "You and Double Oh Four had only one objective: prevent Wolfgang Koehler from abduction. And what happened?"

M paused before answering her own rhetorical question.

"He was abducted! Double Oh Four already gave her complete report of the night's events."

Bond knew the point M was rising. He had made a judgment call. Now he had to defend it.

"I figured the abductors needed Koehler alive," he said. "I calculated that Double Oh Four's life was at greater risk."

"We don't just give out Double Oh designations! She knew the risks, just as you do!"

M rose from her seat and stared out the window at the falling snow.

"Have you any idea what Koehler was working on?" she said.

"No, ma'am," Bond replied. "I was told that information would be available only on a need-to-know basis."

"He called it the Heracles project," M said. "Koehler cooperated with many world renowned scientists. The idea was to create a formula that would interact with enzymes inside the human body to strengthen them, physically and mentally. It would be able to cure sickness and disease and create faster, stronger, smarter human beings. Koehler had intended the formula for medicinal use, but when he realized certain individuals would be interested in the military ramifications, he panicked."

Bond nodded slowly, starting to understand the extent of M's frustration.

"And now Koehler has vanished into thin air," M said, turning back to Bond.

"Not quite," Bond said. "Double Oh Four is with Q's assistant, working at the latest incarnation of the Identigram. She believes she can identify the man who was impersonating Koehler."

Miss Moneypenny led Iva Hotbod into the room. Iva looked awkwardly from Bond to M, and then she handed her superior a file folder. M leafed through the papers inside.

"One Morris Klein," Iva said. "A career criminal who was recently paroled. His areas of expertise include disguise and torture. He frequently haunts the Oberdeutch Club, not far from here."

"In that case, you two had better go after him. Be careful… and try not to botch this one up!"

**_A/N - That's all for now. Please review, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Kwanza, and Merry Christmas!_**


	3. Love and Death at the Oberdeutch Club

_**Matteic**_ – **Obviously I didn't have this chapter finished by New Year's. Sorry it's taken so long to get a new chapter up. And the name I used for M was the one used as her given name in the James Bond continuation novels by Raymond Benson.**

Bond eyed the Oberdeutch bartender casually. He straightened his bowtie and placed one elbow on the bar.

"Pick your poison," the bartender said in a husky, nondescript voice.

"A martini," Bond requested. "With vodka and a twist of lemon. Medium dry. Shaken, not stirred."

The bartender nodded and turned his back to Bond, who returned to scanning the crowd at the club for anyone he might recognize from the gala earlier.

Iva Hotbod floated towards him, a vision in white in her flowing evening gown. Bond reached out a hand to stroke her soft hair.

"James," she said, quietly, breathily.

"Iva," Bond responded. "Any sign of him?"

Iva shook her head. She turned her back to the bar and joined Bond in scanning the crowd.

"This job is murder," she said.

"You can say that again."

The voice belonged to the bartender. He set the shaken and not stirred martini at Bond's elbow.

As Bond began to move the cocktail glass to his lips, Iva turned to look at his eyes. She placed her right hand delicately on his cheek.

"May I have a sip of that?"

Bond shrugged his shoulder and put the glass to Iva's lips.

Iva's eyes widened in horror and her mouth opened as if to scream. She stumbled back, placing a hand to her temple, stumbled forward again, and then collapsed into Bond's arms.

Bond's hand went immediately to Hotbod's neck. Double Oh Four had known the risks. Now she knew nothing.

Bond maneuvered the lifeless corpse into a nearby chair. He bent over and gave Iva a final kiss on the neck.

Then Bond clenched his teeth and vaulted over the bar.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

As he pushed through the door into the Oberdeutch's kitchen, Bond recognized the bartender who had slipped him the dirty martini. The bartender's hands went to his chin. Bond and his target both kept walking as the flesh on the bartender's face seemed to come away.

The man turned, smiled maliciously, and then tossed the mound of flesh at Bond. Bond's hands quickly darted out to catch it. As Bond held the latex mask in his hands, he recognized Morris Klein.

Bond removed his Walther from his chamois leather holster and raced after Klein. The two crashed, Bond shortly after Klein, through the other set of kitchen doors leading back into the club. Bond fired his Walther, just barely missing, causing the room of club goers to panic and flee for the exits.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Klein thundered up the stairs to the second floor of the club. Bond pounded up the stairs after him. But when Bond made it to the top, Klein had disappeared.

Bond slowly moved along the landing, keeping one hand on the railing preventing a drop to the first story below. Suddenly, footsteps pounded in Bond's direction. Klein had emerged from behind a potted plant in a corridor and was now charging at Bond.

Bond braced himself, keeping Klein's weight from throwing him over the railing. Klein's hands came to Bond's throat, lifting and squeezing, and Bond knew if he didn't fight Klein would have him over the railing.

Bond's foot connected sharply with Klein's groin.

As Klein grabbed himself and stumbled back, Bond lunged forward and grabbed Klein by both shoulders. But Klein returned Bond's favor by sending his foot into Bond's crotch.

Both men feel to their knees and gasped, but Klein began crawling away. As Bond picked himself up, Klein got back on his feet and started running as fast as he could.

Klein wiped the veil of sweat from his face. This was not part of the job he had agreed on.

Klein ran back down the stairs. He looked back just in time to see Bond climbing onto the banister and preparing to slide down it.

Outside the club, Klein didn't stop running. Wheezing for breath, he ran around the club into a back alley. Desperately, he began pounding on the first door he saw.

"Come on," he pleaded. "Open up!"

He pounded once more, then felt a dull _crack _on his skull. He was grabbed by the shoulder and thrown into a brick wall.

With his back against the wall, Klein finally took advantage of the moment to catch his breath. Bond was screwing a silencer onto his firearm, the object that had connected with Klein's skull, staring Klein down with murder in his cold, gray eyes.

"Klein," he said, his voice smooth, cool, and unnerving when combined with the sinister gleam in his eyes, "who are you working for?"

Klein spat into Bond's face.

"Leave me alone," he said. "I'm just a security guard."

He stepped towards Bond. Bond shoved Klein back with one hand, still holding the PPK in the other.

"For whom?" Bond asked. "Who hired you to abduct Wolfgang Koehler?"

Klein thought he felt his throat tightening. He swallowed hard and resisted the urge to wipe away the sweat. He was looking death in the face, and he was still trying to play it cool.

"I don't know anything," he said. "I'm not talking."

Bond pushed the gun against Koehler's adam's apple. A wry smile crossed his lips.

"How do you feel about torture, Klein? It becomes pleasurable after a while. I rather enjoy it."

"You're childish. Like a twelve-year-old. A very sadistic twelve-year-old."

"Yes. And you're my play thing. A rag doll for me to toss about and abuse however I'd like."

Klein swallowed hard again.

"All right," he said, his voice starting to tremble. "I'll talk. I'll tell you whatever you want."

Bond pulled the gun away. Klein's hand immediately went to his throat to massage where the gun had been.

"I work as a security guard at Angel Pharmaceuticals in Australia," Klein said. "The person in charge is Demonia Angel. She planned it all. That's all I know. I swear."

Bond took a few steps back and then leveled his pistol at Klein's head.

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" Klein said. "You can't just kill me."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Actually . . ."

Bond thought about his night of passion with Iva. He thought about her poisoned and dying in his arms. He felt nothing but hatred as he looked at Klein. And then he thought about his license to kill . . . however he saw necessary, whoever he saw necessary.

He smiled as he pulled the trigger. Klein's body fell back into the brick wall and crumpled to the ground as Bond removed the silencer from his Walther and put the gun back in the shoulder holster.

"I can."


	4. The Q Arsenal

_Disclaimer - I own no rights to 007 or any related characters._

_**A/N - To all of those who were actually reading this, I apologize for the long break between chapters. Seeing "Quantum of Solace" last week inspired me to resume writing.**_

_HAL-9001 _- Thank you for your encouraging review. I hope you continue to read and enjoy.

James Bond stood in the conference room of MI6 Headquarters in London, England, staring at a ghost. The image of Morris Klein, the man he had just killed, hovered translucently above the floor.

"Morris Klein, currently deceased," M intoned. "Klein was employed as a security guard for Angel Pharmaceuticals."

Klein's image disappeared, and another one flickered into its place. It was the life-size image of a woman, not very tall but certainly voluptuous. Her wide eyes and easy smile suggested not innocence, but actually the contrary. They were charming, but at the same time nearly satanic. The cheeks were touched with freckles, and a long scar jutted diagonally across the left eye. This was crowned by a long mane of wild, fiery red hair.

"This is Dr. Demonia Angel," M said. "The head of Angel Pharmaceuticals."

Bond paced around the hologram, observing Demonia from every angle with a small grin on his face. This assignment was shaping up much better than he had expected.

Demonia vanished, and the diminutive man with dark hair and thick glasses Bond had encountered in Austria appeared.

"That's him," Bond said. "That's the man I saw at the gala."

"Dr. Red Damion," M said. "He's Dr. Angel's research assistant."

Q, who until now had remained silent at the holographic projector's control panel, spoke up.

"I refuse to believe Dr. Angel is in any way mixed up with this," he said. "She's an astounding woman, one of the world's foremost scientists, and my personal role model."

"Interesting role model," Bond muttered.

The title Q, like M, was as much of an office designation as it was a code name. The previous Q, or "Quartermaster", had been Major Boothroyd. Boothroyd's twin passions were firearms and technology. He was the man who had given Bond his first Walther PPK, as a replacement for the Baretta that Bond had carried at the time. Bond had taken the new weapon with initial reluctance, but it had since become Bond's favorite piece of equipment, feeling as comfortable beneath the arm as if it were an anatomical feature. Bond and Boothroyd's personalities often clashed, but despite many sarcastic barbs exchanged between the two, they eventually developed a mutual respect for each other.

The new Q, the deputy Major Boothroyd had personally groomed to replace him following his retirement, was another story. While the two were slowly starting to warm to each other, Bond could tell at times that the new Q thought him little more than a nuisance, and he often suspected that Q's barbs, unlike those of his predecessor, were in earnest.

"With all due respect," Bond continued aloud, "Klein was carrying a Level 5 Security Pass for Angel Pharmaceuticals."

"That's not all," M added. "Klein's not the only former convict to be given a job at Angel Pharmaceuticals. Over the last few years, the company has been recruiting recently released criminals to its security force."

"Instead of rent-a-cops, they use rent-a-thugs," Bond commented.

"Just so," M said, her voice dry in the wake of Bond's quip.

When Red Damion's holographic image faded, a globe hovered into view, flecked in tiny red circles.

"Angel Pharmaceuticals owns chemical plants all over the world," M said.

The continent of Australia detached from the rest of the map and then grew until the entire holograph appeared as a satellite image of Australia. The image zoomed in further to a single chemical plant.

"Dr. Angel herself has been spending a good deal of time lately at her Australian branch in Sydney. Moneypenny has booked you on the next flight. You are to investigate Angel Pharmaceuticals to find any clues you can about Professor Kohler's whereabouts. But do so with discretion."

The hologram disappeared and the conference room lights came back up. M turned to Q.

"Quartermaster, make a few phone calls. See if your contacts in the scientific community can arrange a meeting with Dr. Angel. Also, take a few moments to personally instruct Double Oh Seven on the use of the equipment currently being used by our field operatives."

"Of course, ma'am," Q said, squinting his eyes above his walrus mustache. As Bond followed him out of the conference room, he added, "And this time, pay close attention, Oh Oh Seven."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

When Q and Bond stepped off the elevator into the Q-Labs, they were greeted by Miss Nagai, Q's personal assistant. Miss Nagai was a beautiful English-born Japanese woman, who seemed too young and too gorgeous to be the "science geek" that she was. Due to this fact, many in the department referred to Nagai by the nickname Q'ute.

Miss Nagai led the two men to a table cluttered with what Q referred to as "instruments", and most everyone else called gadgets. She held up a dress shirt on a hanger and held it to Bond's torso. Bond took the hanger curiously and then looked up to see Q pointing a handgun at him. His jaw dropped as Q pulled the trigger, and the bullet rattled off his chest.

"I've been wanting to do that for some time now," Q said.

"Your new body armor," Miss Nagai explained. "Lighter but more resilient than Kevlar. Should stop any small caliber fire from even close range."

"But what happens if someone takes a machine gun to me?" Bond asked.

"I suggest you avoid that," Q replied promptly.

Miss Nagai took a piece of cord from the table and placed it around her neck. A long, white tooth dangled from the center.

"Shark tooth necklace," she said. "Not much to look at, I know, but it contains a homer, and it's suitable for either a man or a woman."

She smiled coyly as Bond delicately removed the necklace and pocketed it.

"Those aren't the only new pieces of wardrobe you'll be leaving here with today, James," she said. "All of your jackets have been fitted with a grappling system. To fire the rappel cord, simply twist the cufflink. Another twist and the cord will retract in a matter of seconds."

"It should be enough to get you out of some awkward situations," Q said.

"I don't believe in awkward situations, Q," Bond replied. "Only opportunities for success."

"And that is why everybody else hates you," Q said. He took a wristwatch from the table. "Now this I'm particularly proud of. Your wristwatch has been refitted."

"Omega?" Bond asked, fielding the question not to Q, but rather towards his lovely assistant.

"Naturally," she replied.

Q cleared his throat until Double Oh Seven and Q'ute both looked at him.

"In addition to the usual high intensity laser, I've added a spray gun that will emit a potent nerve gas. Should be enough to incapacitate an enemy for . . . oh, I'd say at least sixty seconds."

He took what looked like an everyday Texas Instruments brand calculator and handed it to Bond.

"Finally, this pocket calculator. It actually houses a Plastic explosive. Use the number keys to set the timer and the equal key to activate it."

"And who said math wasn't useful in the real world?" Bond joked, carefully placing the bomb in his breast pocket.

"Oh, grow up, Double Oh Seven!" Q said. It was a phrase he had, no doubt, learned from Major Boothroyd. "I do expect to see all of my equipment back in . . ."

"Pristine order?" Bond finished.

Q rolled his eyes.

"I'll certainly try," Bond said.

He winked at Miss Nagai, who giggled coquettishly, and then walked back into the elevator and hit the up button.

**_A/N - Miss Nagai is taken from the superb "007: Everything or Nothing" video game, while the nickname "Q'ute" is borrowed from John Gardner's Bond novels._**


	5. Angel & Damion

_Disclaimer - I don't own the rights to James Bond or any related characters, but I can still dream . . ._

_**cascade-of-black-ink -** _**Thank you for your review. I really am trying to make this in the vain of one of the old school Bond movies. It's based on a Bond fanfilm I made that was definitely meant as a tribute to the Connery/Moore movies, with a little bit of the Brosnan era mixed in. I decided that if I ever did a sequel, it would probably have more of a Brosnan/Craig feel to it. As for Lazenby, he was a decent Bond, but I just feel he brought nothing new to the mix. As for Demonia Angel, the name is definitely over the top, but that was intentional. I wanted a name that would be as unique as Doctor No or Auric Goldfinger.**

The suit coat was too warm when James Bond stepped out of the airplane into the hot Australian landscape. His silk shirt was quickly becoming soaked in sweat and he hoped the expensive cologne and deodorant he used would be enough to mask the smell.

Finally, Bond saw the sign with "Universal Medicine" drawn on it in bold, black marker. The woman who was holding it could have been young and attractive, but she was doing her best to hide it. Her prim, plain frock suggested the clothing of a much older woman, her hair was forced back into an impossibly tight bun, and she peered out from over the rims of tiny glasses. Her expression was completely devoid of humor, or any other emotion, as Bond greeted her.

"Are you the representative from Universal Medicine?" the woman asked.

"I am. My name is Dr. James Bond. Are you the representative from Angel Pharmaceuticals?"

"I'm an office assistant there. My name is Lillian Cutie, but my mates call me Lil."

"Lil Cutie?" Bond asked, slanting his eyebrows wryly.

"I never said you were my mate, Dr. Bond," Ms. Cutie replied curtly. "I'm to show you to our Sydney facilities."

She led the way to her car, a Ford Mondeo, and slid into the driver's seat, waiting for Bond to go around and open the passenger door for himself.

"It's no Aston Martin," Bond muttered under his breath, "but I guess it will have to do."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Bond recognized the logo on the building as he and Miss Cutie approached the massive building. The Angel Pharmaceuticals logo was based around the standard medical symbol of two snakes twisted around a pole. Bond thought the snakes appeared more sinister than the standard set, but that might have been his imagination. The snakes were surrounded by a pair of wings and crowned with a halo, and all of this was on a background of, ironically, what appeared to be hellfire.

Miss Cutie parked the Ford and led Bond inside the building. At the other end of the hallway, Bond saw in the flesh the woman he had seen in hologram form. She approached with long but graceful feminine strides. In person, Demonia Angel had a certain smoldering sensuality that wasn't captured by the hologram. She was carrying a tiny Chihuahua on one arm, absentmindedly stroking it with the other.

A man followed at Demonia's heels. He was unusually tall, and with a fittingly dense build. He didn't seem to notice anyone in the room. His gaze was fixed directly at the wall in front of him, far above everyone's heads, and his mouth was a cruel, rigid line, perfectly parallel with the line formed by his square chin.

"You must be the representative from Universal Medicine," Demonia said. Her voice was a throaty purr. "Pleased to meet you, Dr . . .?

"Bond. James Bond. You must be Demonia Angel."

Demonia simply nodded and waved at the tall man at her heels.

"This is my bodyguard, Quinn."

Quinn didn't respond, but rather continued to stare at the empty spot on the wall.

Suddenly, another figure Bond recognized entered, looking slightly panicked. He reached up and tapped Demonia's shoulder for her attention.

"Dr. Angel," he said. "May I have a word with you?"

"Dr. Bond, this is my colleague, Dr. Damion," Demonia said. "Dr. Damion, meet Dr. Bond."

Dr. Damion reached out to shake Bond's hand.

"But I believe we've already met," Bond said, yanking Damion's arm and meaningfully pulling him closer. He said, directly into Damion's ear, "At a luncheon in Austria. Professor Wolfgang Koehler was the lecturer."

Damion pulled himself out of Bond's grip and cast a threatening stare at him. Without looking away, he said, "Dr. Angel, you have a visitor."

"Not now, Damion," Demonia said. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"But Dr. Angel," Damion whimpered, "it's _him_."

Damion's anxiety was transferred to Demonia's heretofore for a brief moment before returning to her usual cool smile. Still, Bond had caught the quick flash of fear and realized that Damion's meaning evidentally had not been lost on Demonia Angel.

"Excuse me, Dr. Bond, but it seems I have other business to attend to. Ms. Cutie will give you the tour of our facilities."

Bond eyed Ms. Cutie's frock.

"I'm sure she'll keep me abreast of everything," he said.

Ms. Cutie responded with a stare that was nearly as threatening as Damion's.

As she started to lead Bond down a long corridor, Bond looked over his shoulder. Angel and Damion were having an animated discussion with someone. Bond managed a quick glimpse of his face. It was a long, angular face, pale, and gaunt, with deeply sunken in eyes. Demonia led Damion and the mysterious newcomer into a room along the hall, closing it shut behind her.

Bond turned back to Ms. Cutie, but he couldn't help but tune out her droning voice as she unenthusiastically began to point out technical devices and vats filled with chemicals during their walk through the building.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Mr. Blank stroked a scar along his shallow cheek as he stared down the bridge of his pointy nose at Angel and Damion.

"The Organization has been waiting," he said. "You promised us you would have a sample of the Heracles formula ready for us by now."

"Professor Koehler's research wasn't complete," Demonia said. "The formula isn't ready yet. We need more time."

"We've given you more time," Blank said. "Time and money. You said that Koehler's breakthrough would be enough to finish the drug."

"We are doing the best we can," Damion said. "Our scientists are the best in the world. You have to trust our company."

Blank stood, towering over the two scientists, and let his hand fall heavy on the table in front of, him producing a _bang_ almost like that of a gunshot. Damion was visibly shaken by it.

"No. I do not have to trust your company," Blank said. "Just remember who it is you are answering to."

"We need one more week," Demonia said. Her countenance was unflinching, but her purring voice faltered a little bit. "Heracles will be finished by then. You have my word."

Only Quinn's countenance remained completely unchanged. He didn't react at all to anything said, but stood, as expressionless and as silent as ever, at Demonia's back.

"We will not wait that long," Blank said. He reached into his coat pocket. "You have three more days. That's all we can give you. You know who I work for."

Blank handed a small business card to Demonia and then stormed out of the room. Damion placed a supportive hand of Demonia's shoulder. She shrugged it off and then handed over the business card. Damion looked curiously at the crudely drawn question mark, the only printing on the card.

"No one knows who he works for," Demonia said.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"The focus of Angel Pharmaceuticals is primarily health supplements," Ms. Cutie was saying. "Protein drinks, special vitamins, antibiotics . . ."

Bond was relieved when Demonia entered and said, "That will be all, Ms. Cutie. I need to talk to Dr. Bond alone."

She looked straight at Bond, never towards Cutie, who gave her a peevish look, almost looking as though she would stick her tongue out at her, before walking away.

"Have you made your decision yet?" Demonia asked Bond.

"Not yet. It's certainly a very large investment you're asking for," Bond said, hoping he remembered the details of his cover correctly.

"Well, if I haven't been able to convince you here, maybe I will in a more intimate setting." She continued to pet her Chihuahua, but now more deliberately. "I've acquired two tickets for a show at the Opera House tomorrow night. Perhaps you would escort me."

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure."

"Excellent. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's getting late. I've got to take care of closing before I can go home and go to bed."

"Perhaps I should accompany you there as well."

Her expression was altered, but not completely displeased.

"You're a little pervert, James."

"Really? Just a little one?"

She smiled a smile that was definitely filled with wickedness.

"Tomorrow night, Dr. Bond."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Bond sat in his hotel room with his laptop computer opened in front of him. He was using the desktop version of the Identigram, a simpler form of the version that had been used by Q-Branch technicians for years. Q himself thought this version of the software, which had just recently been issued to all the agents in the Double Oh Section, was a joke, but Bond was excited to be able to use it without Q, or even Miss Nagai, looking over her shoulder.

After replicating the mysterious face he had glimpsed at Angel Pharmaceuticals that day as best he could, Bond hit "send" and then cleaned his gun as he waited. Finally, Miss Moneypenny's face appeared on the screen.

"Hello, James," she said. "M's confirmed a match for the image you sent. Stand by."

Soon, M's face replaced Moneypenny's on the laptop screen.

"We've confirmed it," M said. Another image appeared in a box on the screen beside hers. It was clearly the face of the man Bond had only glimpsed earlier. "The man you saw today is known only as Mr. Blank. He's a known contact of the Question Mark Organization, a terrorist group that has just recently begun to attract the attention of global intelligence communities. It appears you're on to something, Bond. If Question Mark is involved in this, it could be bigger than we'd anticipated. You are to continue to observe Demonia Angel, and do try to stay undercover. Good luck."

M's image vanished, only to be immediately replaced by Moneypenny's again.

"Getting more than you bargained for?" she asked.

"As always, Penny," Bond said into the built-in Webcam. "It looks like it's up to me to save the free world . . . again."

Moneypenny half-smiled.

"I'll buy the drinks if you make it back to London in one piece. Be careful, James."

The screen went black and Bond closed the laptop.

The Question Mark Organization. Bond had previously only heard whispers about the group around headquarters. Bond had believed they were merely rumors. Only after encountering one of their operatives had it been confirmed to him as fact. He smiled. Once again, he realized that this was going to be much more than the simple assignment he had assumed it was in Austria.

**_A/N - To be continued . . . _**


	6. The Mighty Quinn

_DISCLAIMER – I own absolutely nothing. (Say it again, huh!)_

_**cascade-of-black-ink**_ – **Thanks again for your review. I'm glad you like my "weird names" because they take so much more effort than just assigning random, common names to each character.**

Bond had seen the Sydney Opera House once before, while taking a sailing holiday in Australia. He was recovering from physical injuries, as well as quite a few mental anguishes, after a particularly unpleasant mission in Eastern Russia. Now, taking in the sight once more, Bond was struck anew by the Opera House's beauty. Normally, he would have taken in the sight without looking twice or breaking a stride. But there was something about the building's absolutely unique exterior that managed to take his breath away, if only for the briefest of moments.

The Sydney Opera House, built in 1973 by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, and subsequently opened by Queen Elizabeth II, reminded Bond of his sailing holiday in so many ways. The unusual pieces that formed the roof of the building reminded him of a series of seashells, like those found along the beach, from one angle. From another, it reminded him of the billowing sails of a schooner. Bond thought of the words of the architect Louis Kahn, who, when speaking on the Sydney Opera House, had remarked that "the sun did not know how beautiful its light was until it was reflected off this building."

Bond straightened the bowtie of his perfectly black tuxedo and stepped into the building's interior, admiring the glossy white and cream Swedish tiles that made up the subtle mosaic of the ceiling. Demonia Angel was waiting for him, wearing a scarlet and white dress along with an odd beret that was tilted at an uneven angle on top of her flowing red hair, creating a formal yet extremely bohemian look.

"There you are, darling," Bond said. "I have a gift for you."

He reached into his pocket and brought out the hastily gift wrapped parcel he'd taken from Q-Branch. Demonia smiled seductively and unwrapped it, saying, "James, you shouldn't have!"

Bond could see the flicker of disappointment in Demonia's eyes when she opened the wooden jewelry case and found the shark tooth necklace inside. She forced a smile.

"You really shouldn't have," she said.

Bond's twitching lips suggested a small laugh, which solicited what appeared to be a genuine smile from Demonia's.

"You'll allow me?" Bond asked, taking the necklace.

Demonia smiled and Bond stepped behind her, clasping the necklace around her neck so that the shark tooth hung centered over her bosom. He softly kissed her neck above the clasp and then they held hands as they passed through the foyer and into the Concert Hall. The lights dimmed as they took their places among the other two thousand opera lovers for the night's performance of Bizet's _Carmen_.

As the Sydney Symphony struck up the overture, Bond leaned over and whispered into Demonia's ear.

"I'd really like to talk more about our business arrangement," he said.

"I'd much rather enjoy _Carmen_," Demonia replied. ""Must we?"

"We must. What your associate showed me at the facility yesterday was nothing more than standard protein drinks and vitamins for health enthusiasts. But I could find similar drugs at any other pharmaceutical company."

"But what you won't find at other pharmaceuticals companies . . ." Demonia's voice in Bond's ear sounded more like a cat's purr than ever. She ran a soft fingertip along a vein on the back of Bond's hand. ". . . is my personal touch."

"I'd love more of that personal touch," Bond said, "later. But right now, I'd like to talk about your plans for your company's future. Any new research, perhaps?"

"Our research is always cutting edge, I assure you, Dr. Bond."

"I'm sure it is. But I'd like to hear specific examples."

"Examples, such as . . ."

"Such as the research I understand you did with the famous scientist Wolfgang Koehler."

"I'll tell you all about it, after the final curtain."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The final curtain finally fell and the members of the audience began bending over and back to grab their coats and bags.

"Now we can talk about that research," Bond told Demonia, who was reaching down into her handbag. "Perhaps at the Bennelong."

Bond felt a tiny prick on his leg, like an insect bite, and tried to flick the bug away. He found no bug, but already the spot began to itch.

"I just remembered I had other business to attend to," Demonia said. "Some other time, dear. Thanks for the wonderful evening."

Bond nodded while scratching at his leg. He watched Demonia disappear into the crowd. Slowly, he stood up. Even then, he felt like he'd risen too fast. The room spun a little and he had a brief moment of light headedness. As he made his way through the crowd, every bump and elbow made the room spin again. His mouth felt dry and he felt dizzy when he found himself back in the foyer.

He imagined a hypodermic needle, a very small one, hidden somewhere in Demonia Angel's purse, and as he thought back on all the drugs he knew of, either from training and research or personal experience, he couldn't think of a specific one that would trigger these exact effects. But of course Demonia had her own pharmaceutical company. There was no telling exactly what type of experimental drug it could be.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Bond shook his head vigorously.

_Shake it off, man, _he thought. _Whatever it is, you can't give in. Can't let it control you_.

He stumbled out into the night, desperately hoping the fresh air would help him shake off the trance. It did, but only a little bit. Bond swallowed as much of it as he could and then willed himself numb. If he could deaden his senses before the drug did, maybe he'd still be able to sleepwalk through this.

Bond looked at his Omega wristwatch and adjusted the dial to display the GPS map that was following Demonia's homing beacon. He lurched after the signal, fighting for each step until the movement finally seemed natural to him again. He was making his way through the city streets now, only slightly better than a drunken man, but still better enough. The blip on his watch that represented the shark tooth necklace was perfectly still, just waiting for him to catch up. Just another block.

Finally, Bond made it to the end of the block and turned down an alley. He stood face to face, not with Demonia Angel, but with her body guard, Quinn. Quinn raised his hand and dangled the necklace in the air. No doubt Demonia had handed it off to him. Somehow, she knew. She'd baited Bond into a trap.

Quinn took the shark tooth in the palm of his hand and made a fist. When he opened it, powder and a string fell to the ground. Bond clenched his fists and his teeth, desperately attempting to summon all the wits he could.

_Come on_, he thought. _Come on. This is no time to be asleep_.

Quinn slid forward, leading with his fist. Bond ducked and the fist flew over his head. Taking the opportunity, Bond threw two punches into Quinn's chest, to which the bodyguard barely reacted.

Quinn grabbed Bond by the shoulders and then drove him into the wall. Still pinning Bond by one hand, Quinn brought the other into Bond's clenched teeth. Bond let the drug numb him, ignored the hit, and then grabbed the shoulder pads on Quinn's ill-fitting suit coat and pulled them down around the thug. This forced both of Quinn's arms down to his side, freeing Bond and allowing him a free hit. Bond summoned all his strength and then delivered a third blow to Quinn's gut.

Finally, Quinn stumbled back. Bond stared him down while jumping so that his back was no longer to the wall. Quinn straightened his suit and then charged at Bond again.

Bond threw a punch, but the dizziness overtook him again. The hit missed and Bond's own weight threw him to the floor of the debris littered alley. Bond grabbed the nearest piece of trash, a long necked beer bottle, smashed it to the ground, and then stood up and lunged at Quinn with the sharp end. But either the drug was making Bond slow, Quinn was faster than he looked, or a little of both, because Quinn managed to grab Bond by the wrist and twist the bottle out of Bond's grip.

Still holding Bond's wrist, Quinn twirled his opponent back into the brick wall of the next building. The surge of pain along his spine brought life back into Bond. He reached up and grabbed Quinn's jaw with both hands, forcing it back as hard as he could, desperately trying to break the neck. When Quinn put up too much of a fight, Bond let go and karate chopped Quinn's neck. Again, Quinn stumbled back.

_Come on_, Bond thought. _Come on. Stay focused. Just now, stay focused . . ._

Quinn grabbed Bond's shoulders and tossed him to the ground, back into the filth of the alley. Then he grabbed a piece of cord from among the garbage and pulled it around Bond's neck. The world spun as the cord came tighter around Bond's throat.

Desperate, Bond once again grabbed the closest piece of trash at hand, a discarded three-ring binder. As the cord around his neck pulled him to his knees, Quinn kneeling behind him, Bond opened the binder's rings, thrust the binder over his head, and closed the rings again. There was a cry of pain and the cord went slack.

Panting for breath, Bond looked over his shoulder and saw that he had successfully driven one ring on the binder through both of Quinn's eye sockets. Drops of blood fell from behind the binder and Quinn continued to moan in pain, blindly swinging through the air and then clawing desperately at the binder.

"That's quite an eyeful," Bond said, still gasping for breath.

He pulled himself fully to his feet and then stumbled back through the alley, into a chain link fence. He vaulted over. Turning around he saw Quinn at the top, the binder still hooked to his face. Quinn collapsed, landing on the binder. He rolled back and forth on the ground, his arms no longer fighting, sobbing loudly in pain.

_**A/N – To be continued, hopefully soon . . . **_


	7. Tasmania Plant

_Disclaimer - I don't own the rights to any trademarks within._

* * *

With the adrenaline wearing off, the tranquilizer coursing through Bond's blood, combined with the injuries he had sustained from his fight with Quinn, hit him hard. Each step now demanded every bit of willpower he had. Even then, as much as he willed away the darkness, the world around him looked like a slow fade to black.

A Ford Mondeo pulled up at the mouth of the alleyway. It took Bond a moment to recognize the mousy secretary who had picked him up from the airport. The tiny glasses were gone, her hair was down, and the formal frock had been replaced with something more comfortable. She seemed like an entirely different woman.

"Get in!"

Bond's judgment was lapsing as everything around him went dark. He knew he was going to pass out, and he only had a few seconds to decide whether he'd be better off unconscious in some dark, strange alley, or in a car with a woman he barely knew.

He crawled into the car.

"Looks like your cover's been blown, Commander Bond."

_Maybe I made the wrong choice_, Bond thought as he felt his head drop to the dashboard.

* * *

Sunlight streamed through venetian blinds into Bond's face. He was lying on a Futon cushion, his head on a throw pillow. He felt something beneath the pillow, like the pea under all of the princess' mattresses. He pulled it out and found it to be the cold steel of a Berretta, just like the one that was once his usual sidearm.

Major Boothroyd's words came back to him: "_Nice and light, in a lady's handbag_."

Bond's head ached from whatever drug he'd slept off, the ultimate hangover. Walking unsteadily, he managed to make it out of the apartment into fresh air. The woman he knew as Lillian Cutie was sipping coffee. She was wearing a cream-colored tank top and blue jeans, another vast improvement over her appearance when he'd met her.

"You're finally up," she said. "You're a real arsey, you know that?"

"What?"

"Arsey? It's a local colloquialism. Somebody who gets by more on luck than anything else. You're less a man than you are a force of nature."

"I know what the word means. What I meant was, what happened . . . last night?"

"What happened is I saved your backside," Ms. Cutie said, pouring another cup of coffee. "And a very nice one it is, at that. How do you take your coffee?"

"Very black. Lillian Cutie's just a cover name, isn't it?"

"Chief Inspector Britannia Fox, Australian Federal Police." She handed Bond his cup of black coffee. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bond."

"You've been briefed on the situation?"

"Fully. We've had our eye on Demonia Angel for years. We believe she's been using her facilities to manufacture designer drugs."

"Worse than that. I'm afraid she . . ."

"Has Wolfgang Koehler and the Heracles Formula?" Britannia finished. "Like I said, I've been fully briefed."

"Wish I'd been informed of that."

"I'd like you to come with me to Tasmania, Commander. That's where I believe Angel and Damion have taken Professor Koehler. We'll rendezvous with Sgt. Quigley, my mole inside the Angel Pharmaceuticals chemical plant, there."

"First things first," Bond insisted. "May I borrow your phone?"

Britannia consented and Bond went back into the apartment. He called MI6 headquarters and was put through to Miss Moneypenny.

When he came back out, he looked at Britannia.

"According to your files, you have a birthmark on your right . . ."

Bond eyed her chest again.

"No way."

"Come now. For our countries."

"I'm afraid you'll just have to trust me, Commander Bond. Now, to Tasmania?"

Bond touched Britannia's coffee cup with his own. "Sounds lovely."

* * *

_Why do they always have to make their final gambit someplace remote, like an island?_ Bond thought once ashore on Tasmania. At least this time it wasn't a volcanic garden, like the Shatterhand mission in Japan. Quigley, Britannia's informant, was a wiry man with shaggy brown hair. As he and Britannia spoke, Bond gazed out at the beach, hoping to get a glimpse of some form on natural wildlife, perhaps even the infamous Tasmanian Devil.

"Like I told you, Quigley's our dibber-dobber inside the Tasmanian plant," Britannia said.

"Something dodgy's definitely going on this island, Chief Inspector, I can tell you that. Part of the building the powers-that-be won't let anyone near. Might wanna go and take a dekko for yourself."

He passed her a manila folder.

"Here's the blueprints you asked for."

Britannia showed Bond the blueprints, making small circles on it with her fingertips.

"We can sneak into the plant here," she said. "Then, once we've got Koehler, we can set explosives here, in the boiler room. Should blow the whole place to Kingdom Come."

"Well, let's do it, then."


	8. Hell Down Under

_Disclaimer - I own no rights to 007 or any related characters._

_**cascade-of-black-ink, Mireille Bouquet Fan, and giant tim –**_** Thank you for your reviews. I know I've been dragging my feet with this fic, and I've honestly been tempted to abandon it entirely, but you've encouraged me to keep writing. With that motivation, I think I can squeeze out a few final chapters.**

_**DragonTyc, The Chuckinator, and KathrynXX - **_**Thank you as well for adding this story to your "favorites" and "alerts" lists.**

* * *

Britannia and Bond were both dressed in stealth suits issued by their respective governments for covert operations as they tiptoed through the corridors of the Angel Pharmaceuticals plant on Tasmania Island. Britannia had picked the lock Sgt. Quigley had indicated on the facility plans as the ideal point of entry.

The black clothing made the two agents nearly invisible as long as they stuck to the shadows in the dimly lit hallway. Unfortunately, nearly invisible didn't seem good enough considering the legion of armed guards who were patrolling the building. If Demonia's hiring of Morris Klein was any indication, they were all convicted criminals with charges ranging from assault and battery to first-degree murder. Bond felt a familiar nausea in the deepest depths of his gut as he slowed his breathing and inched forward in a prone position. He gripped his Walther tightly, his finger positioned neatly over the trigger guard, as he consciously made an effort to render every footstep silent.

A look back at his companion revealed to Bond immediately that Britannia felt it, too. She was making her best effort to keep her upper lip from trembling and the rest of her body shaking, her eyes solid and focused, her footsteps falling with equal effort to Bond's. Her only action that betrayed her emotion was an occasional bite down on her lower lip. A lip that Bond himself would rather be biting.

_After the mission_, Bond told himself. _If you make it through this one . . . alive._

Britannia was a professional, but she was scared. Bond didn't blame her. He was, too. Fear was part of the business. Bond entered each of these situations telling himself that death wasn't an option. But it was a possibility. Every bit of training he'd ever had drilled that into him. Despite everything he did, the choice could be taken out of his hands. But he had to nurse the fear. Fear gave way to adrenaline. And when the fight-or-flight response kicked in, Bond trusted his instinct to get him through another mess.

He tried to smile at Britannia reassuringly. He caught a twinkle in her eye. The form-fitting stealth suit looked good against her body, and although she had tied her hair back into another severe pony tail, one comma of silky hair kept falling across her face, much like the comma Bond brushed out of his own eyes.

Bond put out a hand to signal Britannia to stop, dead in her tracks. Two armed guards were coming around a corner up ahead, turning in their direction. Bond pushed Tania into the nearest hallway, but it was too late. They'd been spotted. The shorter of the two guards cocked a shotgun.

"Halt! Who goes there?" he demanded in a gravelly Aussie accent.

Bond reflexively pushed the shotgun up into the guard's face, then bringing his sidearm cracking down on the man's skull. When the shorter guard collapsed, the taller guard drew his own sidearm and fired twice at Bond's chest. The bullets ricocheted of Q's new body armor, worn snugly under Bond's clothes. Bond smashed the Walther into the other guard's temple and the man collapsed onto the unconscious body of his fallen companion.

"Obviously not a friend," Bond said.

Britannia was now visibly starting to tremble. Bond pulled her close to him and kissed her passionately on the mouth. He enjoyed her taste and her scent as he felt her kissing back.

"This is where we have to split up," he said. He touched her hand and put the pocket calculator he was carrying in it. "You set the explosive. I'll look for Koehler."

He instructed her quickly on how to use the timer and then they kissed again. Then Bond forced his body away from hers and they moved down different corridors.

* * *

Bond tiptoed down another flight of stairs. The air was chilly and dank, adding to his nausea. He could hear voices down the hallway. Then there was an agonized, monstrous growl and the sound of a cardiogram flat lining.

There was more muffled conversation and then Bond ducked beneath the stairs as Red Damion passed by, flanked by more armed guards.

When their footsteps were no longer audible, Bond walked in the direction they had come from. He found what looked like a small dungeon cell. There were bars on the door, now swung fully open. The occupant no longer needed to be contained.

Bond stepped inside and observed the monstrous mass lying prostrate on the floor. It seemed barely human, a mass of oversized muscles bulging in every direction. The spine jutted out like plates on a stegosaurus, holding the torso at an angle as though the monster was merely resting. The eyes were frozen open in terrible fear and agony, and Bond barely recognized the face of Wolfgang Koehler. His wrists and ankles were shackled to the wall, the clasps frighteningly tight in comparison to the body. Bond eyed the cardiogram and other monitors in the corner, all of which had been switched off, and muttered a curse. He had sacrificed Koehler to rescue Double Oh Four in Austria, and now they were both dead.

Checking his weapon and steeling his determination, Bond turned and ran up the stairs Damion and the guards had just climbed. He slowed down a little bit when he reached the top of the stairs, but he kept moving as rapidly as he could until he caught another sight of Damion. He crept up behind him, tailing Damion and his goons, always from a hallway's length away.

Finally, Damion and his men ducked into a large office. Bond hugged the wall and peered through the corner of the doorway.

"Professor Koehler is dead," Damion said. "The formula was too much for the old man. It stopped his heart."

"Oh well," Demonia Angel replied, stroking her lap dog's head. "Prepare a sample case of the latest formula. Take it to Koehler."

"But, Dr. Angel," Damion objected, "the formula just killed a man. We haven't had time to perfect it yet."

"Blank gave us three nights," Demonia said. "We've taken three nights. So we'll keep the rendezvous with him. They want the Heracles formula now, they'll get it now. And when they realize they don't like what they paid for, we'll be able to charge them twice as much for a healthy batch."

Just then, Bond felt cold steel at the back of his neck. He raised his hands in surrender and allowed himself to be coaxed into the next room.

* * *

Red Damion hustled out of the room as Bond was handcuffed and tied to a chair, his Walther PPK placed on the corner of a desk beside him.

"It's so nice to see you again, James," Demonia purred. "With Professor Koehler dead, I need a new test subject for my formula."

"You'd honestly sell a formula that would turn murderers and militants into unstoppable monsters?"

"You're wrong about me, James," Demonia said, standing beside Bond and flirtatiously running her fingers through his hair. She seemed more than ever like a cat toying with a mouse she had cornered. "I'm making a medicine. Koehler's formula is a health break-through. Diseases previously considered incurable can be neutralized. The human body can be made more resilient. And athletes will have an easier way than ever to bulk up before a big game. I'll make billions of dollars. For helping people."

"Only if cancer patients bid higher than terrorists."

There was a flash of displeasure in Demonia's eyes, but it soon passed. She smiled deliciously and pushed back Bond's bangs, caressing his forehead, then moving her hand down his neck and to his chest. Bond was immediately confused by her seductive massage. He was finding the torture more pleasurable than he knew he should have been.

"Spare me the self-righteousness," Demonia said, drawing her hand away. "I know all about you, Double Oh Seven. The Queen's most loyal agent. You have no sense of right or wrong beyond what your government tells you."

"I don't need a government to tell me what you did to Iva and Koehler was wrong," Bond said, fighting against his restraints. "You'll pay for both of them."

"James, I'm disappointed in you," Demonia said, her voice returning to a soothing purr. "Threatening a lady?"

"You hardly qualify by that standard, Dr. Angel."

Demonia signaled to one of her employees and he stepped forward holding a glass vial of a dark purple ooze. He twisted the cap off and the odor tickled Bond's nostrils. Bond pulled away.

Another guard sucker punched Bond twice. Bond doubled forward, fighting harder than ever against the churning in his gut. The vial came closer to his lips. Bond thought of Koehler's muscle-bound corpse and the look of abject horror in the late scientist's eyes and clenched his mouth shut, drawing as far as he could away from the vial.

Demonia held Bond's head in place with both hands while the man holding the vial pinched Bond's nostrils shut and pushed his head back.

"Relax, James," Demonia said. "You should have died so many times before this. Just consider this a new way to die."

* * *

_**A/N – To be continued . . .**_


	9. Falling Angel

_Disclaimer - I don't own the rights to any trademarks within._

_**Mireille Bouquet Fan – **_**Thanks for your advice. I tried to be a little more descriptive in this chapter.**

* * *

There was the roar of heavenly thunder. Bond felt bits of glass strike his cheek, and a cold, viscous fluid drenched the side of his face. The guard that had been holding the vial was wincing, biting his lip, and trying to use one hand to cover a hole in the other, blood flowing between his fingers.

Bond saw a custodian's cart slowly moving across the floor on the other side of the room. A hand was peeking over the top of it, and clenched in the hand was a Berretta handgun.

The Berretta roared again as the guards around Bond flipped the safeties off their weapons and aimed them. Panicked, Demonia let go of her Chihuahua which, frightened, took off across the room, yapping as Demonia vanished through a hidden passage in the wall behind Bond.

* * *

Britannia couldn't help smiling when the bullet put a hole through both the glass vial and the hand that was holding it. This was her reputation as she was working her way up to the rank of Chief Inspector. The sheila who could shoot better than any of the blokes. The men of the Aussie Feds may not have respected her in the office, but they couldn't crack any jokes when they witnessed her prowess on the firing range. Her bull's-eyes could make the most testosterone-soaked ego go limp.

She placed her shots with pride. Shoulders, fingers, and the fleshiest parts of legs, arms, and stomach. Her goal wasn't to kill. It was to create a diversion. That, and to cause her targets as much pain and suffering as possible.

As several of them approached her cart in a small pack, Britannia put all of her weight against the cart and sent it flying across the floor, knocking the entire group onto their backsides. She leapt from her prone position and sprinted across the room, dodging bullets from an armed guard still standing in a corner of the room. Britannia tried to return fire when she realized that she'd already spent a full round. She was now too close to the guard for him to miss. Like lightning, Britannia stretched her leg as long as it would go and swept the side of her foot into the side of the guard's head. The kick sent the man crashing to the ground.

Britannia was still smiling when she felt the blow from behind. She felt a warm, viscous fluid spreading across her stomach before she started to feel a burning sensation.

* * *

The room smelled of cordite now. Bond took advantage of Britannia's distraction to turn the knob on his wrist watch that activated the laser. It would take a few seconds for the beam to cut through the handcuff chain. In those few seconds, he watched the Australian girl neutralize most of the armed guards in the room. But she herself was too distracted to notice another guard creep into the room behind her. Bond tried to call out a warning, but the bullet travelled faster than his voice ever could.

Bond felt the tension between his hands break and switched off the laser. His pistol was still on the desk beside him. It felt good to have it back in his hand, where it belonged. He pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into the exact center of the forehead of the man who had shot Britannia.

One of the men who had been knocked over by the janitor's cart was trying to get back up. As Bond walked by, he pushed the cart all the way over, pinning the man back down and spilling cleaning chemicals on the floor.

Britannia was on her knees, her hand pressed against her stomach. Her fingers were completely red.

"How's she goin'?"

She was trying to speak with the same bravado as always, but her voice trembled.

"You've been shot."

"Ta, mate. I'm aware of that. Where's Koehler?"

"He's no more." Bond looked past Britannia's hand. The black top wasn't dark enough to hide the rapidly spreading blood stain. "You shouldn't have come in here. You should have stuck to the plan."

"You're glad I did though." She even managed a small chuckle. Followed by a bloody cough. "Knew you'd mess this up somehow. Was just passing by when I overheard your conversation with Dr. Angel and thought you could do with a spot of help."

Britannia used her free hand to pull the calculator from a compartment on her belt and press it into Bond's hand.

"I'm going to try to get out of here," she said. "Wait for back-up. You plant the bomb."

"But I can't just leave you here to die!"

_Not like Koehler. Not like Iva._

"I'm a big girl, James. I'll take care of myself. Just blow this place off the face of my country."

She tore off her sleeves and tied them together, then wrapped them tightly around the wound, tying another knot behind her back.

"But I . . ."

"Don't just stand there like some drongo." She was already pulling herself across the floor on her knees, back the way she had come, away from Bond. "Go!"

Bond swallowed, nodded, and ran out the door.

* * *

Finally in the boiler room, Bond broke the plate of glass on the wall and pulled the fire alarm. Maybe it would give Demonia's peons a fair warning and a chance to escape. Bond wouldn't mind minimizing the casualties on this mission. He had a license to kill at his discretion, which made discretion all the more important. Most of the people in the building were petty criminals. Thugs for hire. Another agency could round them up in the aftermath. Bond's main concern was the building and the drugs inside. Once they were gone, Demonia and her allies would lack not only finances, but a place to hide.

The calculator latched onto one of the big tanks. Bond set the timer for six minutes. He reached for the equals key when something heavy came down on his shoulder.

* * *

Michael Angel, the founder of Angel Pharmaceuticals and Demonia's father, had been a ruthless man. While those around the world who knew him by reputation only saw Dr. Angel as a true humanitarian as well as a solid businessman, a brilliant scientist whose company could save lives with its medical breakthroughs, those who worked for or with Angel knew him as something else. He was a man of fiery temper and very few scruples. The employees of Angel Pharmaceuticals had a nickname for him: "Michael the Archangel."

But the Archangel had one true love in his life: his daughter, Demonia. The first time he saw her, he would always insist, she looked up at her parents with what he was convinced was a thoroughly impish smile, which is why he refused to let his wife name her anything but Demonia. From the beginning, Michael pampered her, lavished her with gifts, devoted every spare moment to her. No matter how much older she got, Demonia remained her daddy's girl. Despite, or perhaps as a result of, Demonia inheriting her father's vile temper and obvious lack of morality.

As the Archangel's employees had given him a nickname, the Archangel himself had a pair of pet names for his daughter. She was "my little angel" and "my little devil" alternately, sometimes within minutes of each other. It was perhaps this duplicitous nature that formed such a close bond between them.

When Demonia became of age and it was time for Michael to discuss handing the reigns of his company over to her, he didn't try to hide the true nature of his success. He didn't even make an offer to "go straight" or even tone down his criminal exploits as so many other fathers might. Instead, he taught her with pride why his company was so successful. There was plenty of money to be made from drugs. Both legal and illegal. So what if you were saving lives on one hand and ruining them on the other? Either paid.

The only thing Demonia changed about her father's business model was the type of people she did business with. It didn't matter how shady her client's past or how unfriendly the foreign power was. Germ warfare was a growth industry.

And now an insolent British agent was trying to tear down the palace Demonia and her father had built. She grabbed a crowbar and swung it down on his shoulder.

* * *

She swung again. This time, Bond turned and caught the crowbar in the palm of his hand. He wrestled it away from her and threw it across the room. But as he was tossing it, Demonia did the same with the calculator.

Bond dove across the floor for it. He scooped up the calculator and thudded up the cast-iron steps to the catwalk above.

He hadn't made it far down the catwalk when he heard Demonia clambering up behind him. She cocked back the hammer on a revolver. Bond didn't try to fathom where she'd found the gun, or why she hadn't just shot him earlier. He started to raise both arms above his head, as if in surrender.

Then he hit the equals key on the calculator and threw it as hard as he could. As Demonia took a few steps backwards, frantically trying to catch it, she lost her balance and tumbled over the railing to the unforgiving floor below.

* * *

Bond bounded down the stairs and checked Demonia's wrist and throat. The pulse was gone. He looked into her lifeless eyes.

"I thought angels could fly," he remarked softly.

He reached into her pocket and found her cell phone. Accessing her digital calendar, Bond brought up the current date and was rewarded with a time and a set of coordinates. Bond made a quick note on his own before tossing Demonia's onto the body of its owner. Then he looked at the timer on the calculator.

Less than two minutes remained. Far from enough time to escape through the nearest exit. Bond hit the equals key. Nothing changed. He punched every other button on the face of the calculator. Still nothing. The fall must have damaged some of the internal mechanisms.

_Thanks again for nothing, Q,_ Bond thought.

There was no way he could follow his planned escape route. It would have taken at least five minutes, even if he ran faster than he'd ever run before. Bond looked around the room as he waited to die. Then he saw a small window on the opposite side of the room, close to the very high ceiling.

_Maybe miracles are possible._

Bond aimed his sleeve at the rafter nearest the window and launched his collar button. The grappling line followed his aim and hooked the rafter. Bond remembered Q's beautiful assistant saying the line could retract in a matter of seconds. But would it be enough to hold his weight?

Bond said a quick prayer and twisted the collar button.

_**A/N – Hopefully, I'll have the final chapter up soon.**_


	10. The Death of Heracles

_Disclaimer - I own no rights to the titles, characters, and trademarks herein._

Bond's knee shattered the glass on the window. He hooked his elbow around the windowsill and unhooked the grappling cord from his sleeve. Time was running out, and Bond was already slipping. He grabbed the sill with both hands and hoisted himself up. It was a tight fit through the small window, but Bond managed to squeeze himself through to perch on the sill on the other side.

He looked at the ground below. Thankfully, he was directly above a grassy knoll. Still, it was a long fall, much longer than the one that had just killed Dr. Demonia Angel. If he didn't land right, Bond would be joining her presently.

_No time to think. Probably only a few seconds left._

Bond balled himself up and plunged.

He hit with his shoulder first, then rolled like a log down the steep hill. When the explosion came, he could feel the heat emanating from it. He could see the flames leaping up a few feet from where he came to rest.

He hurt everywhere. He'd probably broken some bones when he landed. But that didn't matter now. He felt an aching soreness over his entire body, numbing any damage to any specific body parts. There was no time to think about the pain. No time to think about the legion of hired crooks that might have been inside the plant when the bomb went off. No time to wonder if Chief Inspector Britannia Fox had made it out of the building safely.

Bond gritted his teeth and pulled himself to his feet. He had another appointment to keep.

* * *

Red Damion opened the briefcase he was carrying and grinned at the glass vials inside. It wasn't a matter of temptation. He had already succumbed to that. This was premeditated. The moment he left the Tasmania plant and realized he'd finally have some time unsupervised with the Heracles Formula, he knew he was going to try it.

Yes, it had killed Professor Koehler. But this was different. Koehler had been old and feeble. Of course his heart couldn't withstand the power of the formula. But Damion was young and virile.

He twisted the lid off one of the vials.

Damion had been waiting for a chance like this his whole life. Ever since he was born prematurely, he had been small. His family had always assured him that someday, if he ate right and exercised, he'd be the size he was supposed to be, just like everyone else. But that was a lie. Damion continued to be dwarfed by all his peers.

Even when he became a professional scientist, believing this would make people pay attention to the size of his brain rather than the size of his too-small body, he heard sniggers behind his back.

Well, that was all about to change. The diminutive doctor wasn't going to be known as "Dr. Angel's little helper" any longer.

* * *

Bond could hear traffic nearby. The coordinates were for a spot in the woods, just out of sight from the nearby road. He could see a large figure in the shadows up ahead.

The figure was sitting on a tree stump, a briefcase at his side, several empty glass vials at his feet. He was a bulging mass of veins and muscles, spinal plates almost poking out of the skin the way they had on Prof. Koehler's back. Bond had to squint in the darkness to recognize Damion's swollen face glaring at him.

"Damion, how many of those vials did you drink?"

"What happened to Dr. Angel?" Damion demanded.

"She's fallen," Bond replied.

Damion rose, beating his massive chest like a gorilla. He lunged at Bond, letting loose an inhuman roar, hands spread out in front of him like claws.

Bond dived out of Damion's reach, running towards the sound of cars speeding by. Damion's strides behind him were long and mighty, causing the ground to tremble with each step. Damion tackled Bond to the ground and the two tumbled down the hill, locked together.

Once they stopped rolling, Damion repositioned himself over Bond and punched him. Bond's soreness, increased after the second hillside tumble of the night, did little to blunt the pain. On Bond's first few missions, he had tried to believe the rumors that men whispered through MI6 corridors, that pain could be overcome and turned to pleasure. Bond had been tortured too many times to believe that now. Pain couldn't be pleasured, just persevered.

Damion continued throwing punches, mainly to Bond's face. Bond tried kicking and punching back, but Damion didn't seem to feel any of it. He didn't even wince as Bond tried to use all of his strength to push Damion off of him.

Even as he struggled to withstand the pain, Bond realized the battle was one-sided. He was badly outmatched.

Bond held his breath and turned the knob on his wrist watch to release Q's nerve gas.

Damion immediately began choking on the gas. His eyes filled with tears and he tried to rub them with both of his massive hands. In shock and pain, he reared back off of Bond. Quickly, Bond kicked with both of his feet and struck Damion directly in the center of his chest, hitting his center of gravity.

The monstrous figure stumbled back into traffic, where it was dragged down the street over the hood of an oncoming truck.

Bond managed to get to his feet again. He looked over his shoulder down the street where the truck had stopped and the driver was examining Damion's body. He lifted the briefcase waiting beside Damion's stump.

"The death of Heracles," he muttered. "What a tragedy, Dr. Damion."

Each step he took resulted in excruciating pain. But there was no time to rest. The night was waning, and it was a long journey back to civilization.

* * *

Three nights had passed. Bond pushed open the door of Britannia's apartment.

"James!"

The Australian girl sat up on her loveseat. Her hair was in a ponytail again. She was wearing a tank top cut off above the midriff, her abdomen wrapped in gauze bandages. She stood up as Bond drew closer.

"Told you I'd be fine," she whispered.

Bond caressed her cheek, then grabbed her gently by the chin and pulled her face closer to his. He had cheated Death once again, and now he wanted to Live.

Britannia closed her eyes and puckered her lips, but before they touched anything an irritating ringing caused her eyes to open again.

Bond groaned and pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket. The ringing stopped when he flipped them open. He put them on and spoke into the button on his cuff.

"Double Oh Seven here."

"Double Oh Seven, this is M." Bond heard his supervisor's voice in his ear, projecting from the ear piece on the sunglasses. "We've just received the samples you sent. They're all to be destroyed. The Heracles Formula is too much of a nightmare to be unleashed on anyone."

Britannia's eyes pleaded with Bond. She licked her lips with her soft pink tongue.

"The Queen would like you to have dinner with her sometime to thank you for your continued service," M continued. "Of course, the Service doesn't want any publicity, but as it is Her Majesty . . ."

"I'll have to sleep on it," Bond said as Britannia balled up the front of his shirt in her fist. He whipped off the sunglasses and hurled them into the corner of the room.

"Double Oh Seven? Double Oh Seven!" M's voice shouted.

Bond tuned her out and pressed his mouth hard into Britannia's. His arms wrapped around the small of her back, just below the gunshot wound. As their bodies joined together, Bond imagined that if there was a Heaven, it would feel a little bit like this.

Britannia pulled Bond down on the couch on top of her, and Bond carefully arched his back so he wouldn't put weight on Britannia's bandages. They stopped kissing, and as Bond rubbed Britannia's back, she moaned softly, longingly, into his ear.

"Oh, James!"

_**James Bond will return . . .**_


End file.
